The Clattering Train

That is a tacit admission of the most pressing problem. Things really are that bad. His economic policies are merely wallpaper over widening cracks. He has presided over an enterprise built on a fantasy; a house supported on twigs teetering over a cliff. And now the floorboards gape.

Krauthammer doesn't go far enough. The status quo is facing an extinction event and they are beginning to realize it. Take the New York Times as representative of the liberal media. There's a good chance it will be gone in four or five years from bankruptcy. Maybe they hoped that somehow Obama would save it. Now it's clear he can't and he won't. Or take Detroit. They were hoping for "bacon" to show up somehow. But the pig is dead and gone and it is dawning on them.

The facts are hard. Very hard. And they can't be elided any longer.

The most interesting figure in the short term is Bill Clinton because the Democrat revolt needs a leader. The delegation to Obama needs a spokesman. And he's the natural. Bill is smart enough to know that the jig is up and canny enough to realize that if the status quo is to save itself there is only a small window of opportunity left in which to act.

The problem for Bill is he cannot lead this change since he's used up the two terms allotted him. The crux of the drama from the Democrat perspective is that the only man capable of leading the revolt cannot. They have no real party elders left. Gore, Hillary and Kerry have beclowned themselves. Obama has seen to it that no star rose within the party to rival his brilliance.

The weakness of the Democratic Party is the single most destabilizing element in the equation. It's the wildcard in the drama. Nobody, not even the Democrats, knows how it will play out.

Meanwhile, the conservatives, who cannot at present account for more than half the voters, are in a strategic waiting game. At best they can consolidate the half into the nether millstone against which events may grind. The single greatest task for conservatives is to fix their own leadership problems. In so doing they must avoid the single greatest mistake Obama has made, which is to rely on fantasy. The facts, however unpalatable. The truth, no matter how bitter.

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